The 24-year-old power hitter played in 45 games last season for Pittsburgh. He slugged .273/.368/.406 with three home runs and 19 RBIs. In 128 at-bats, Bell also drew 21 walks.

The door has opened for Bell to start for the Pirates next season, and with a new workout plan he’s ready to take advantage of the opportunity.

Tretter isn’t a huge name, but the 6-4 307-pound center is exactly what the Browns needed. Cameron Erving was the center in Cleveland last year, but struggled with the position. He’s expected to move to right tackle in 2017 as the Browns try to figure out what to do with him.

Pro Football Focus had Tretter as their fifth-best center last season before he suffered an injury. He was the Packers’ starter for seven games.

Retaining guard Joel Bitonio was also important for Cleveland. He’s had some trouble staying on the field, missing 11 games in 2016, but when he plays he’s one of the best. He and Joe Thomas will protect the left side of the line, pairing up to be a lethal duo.

Zeitler joining the Browns, who have over $102 million in salary cap space, will not only help them by protecting their quarterback, but he’s also stolen from a division foe. The Bengals will now lose Zeitler and Andrew Whitworth, who is headed to the Rams.

Geno Smith is still on the NFL’s free agent market, as most expected. While the 26-year-old is still young and has time to develop, he hasn’t shown a lot in his four years as a player that would insipire confidence from most teams.

There are a few teams, however, that have expressed some interest in Smith. Ian Rapoport said Tuesday morning on NFL Network that Smith had a meeting with the Giants over the weekend that went “extremely well.” In addition, Rapoport said Smith has drawn interest from the Chargers and Browns.

Price has had similar issues in spring training in the past, but Farrell told reporters Wednesday the current problem is of “greater intensity.”

Price has been a workhorse since 2010 with the Rays. The 31-year-old shouldered the load for an injury-wracked Red Sox rotation last season, leading the majors with 35 starts and 230 innings. But his 3.99 ERA was his worst since his rookie season with Tampa Bay in 2009, and he surrendered a career-high 8.9 hits per nine innings.

Injury issues are out of the norm for Price, who at most missed about six weeks Cheap Giants Jerseys in the middle of the 2013 season with a strained triceps. Otherwise he’s been dependable, one of the many reasons Boston gave him a seven-year, $217 million contract.

Price won’t have to carry as many innings with Chris Sale now in the fold, but elbow injuries don’t go away overnight. Expect the Red Sox to take their time with the health of their prize investment.

Former Seattle kicker Stephen Hauschka has reportedly found a new home in Buffalo.

According to multiple reports, Hauschka signed a four-year deal worth $12.4 million with the Bills on Thursday. ESPN was the first to report the deal.

Hauschka, a 2016 Pro Bowl alternate, has been one of the most sure-footed kickers in the NFL over the past six seasons. He made 175 of 197 field-goal attempts (88.8 percent) since 2011, including an 89.1 field-goal completion percentage in 2016, when he made 33 of 37 field goals.

During that time, Hauschka completed 52 of 65 field goals from at least 40 yards out (80 percent) and 16 of 24 field goals from at least 50 (66.7 percent). He did, however, miss on six extra point attempts in 2016, five of which were blocked.

Hauschka’s release from Seattle seemed inevitable after the Seahawks signed Cheap Google Jerseys former Vikings kicker Blair Walsh to a one-year, $1.1 million deal in February. Hauschka will likely replace Dan Carpenter in Buffalo after the latter completed 19 of 25 field-goal attempts in 2016.

Maybe we can let the men on the field be kids for three hours at a time.

With the infusion of not only more youth in the game, but also more international players than ever, MLB is facing something of an identity crisis. Should it continue the old-school ways of a Guidry, or should more American-born players continue to adopt other nations’ styles?

The 2017 NBA draft had a lot to live up to. From the moment the 2016 draft ended, the hype started to build for next year’s crop of talent. Now only three weeks away from the lottery, it’s fair to wonder what we really know about this draft.

As a responsible media organization, we should probably caution you not to put too much faith in free agency. You don’t have to be a complete Ted Thompson-style skeptic about it, but landing a whole new batch of veteran players is never a panacea for covering up bad management or terrible coaching.

Last year, the Jaguars were lauded for their free agent moves. Unfortunately, a roster loaded with talent wasn’t enough to overcome Gus Bradley’s coaching. The Giants, on the other hand, spent a bundle in free agency to give their defense an injection of talent, and it worked like a charm.

All we’re saying here is not to let the excitement of being an armchair general manager cloud your grip on reality.

The Jaguars dipped their toes into the free agency waters again in 2017, dishing out big money to Calais Campbell, A.J. Bouye and Barry Church. Better luck this time around, Jacksonville.

On the surface, those first 10 starts don’t look too bad. Then you realize it took him through the early 2006 season to tally that many because of major injuries to his knee and then ankle. Grossman didn’t quite cut it as the Bears’ No. 1.

The Giants had the plan to sit the No. 1 overall pick with future Hall of Famer Kurt Warner, then in the shakiest part of his career, in hand as their veteran alternative. That lasted only NFL Jerseys Cheap until Week 11, and Manning has started every Giants game in the past decade.

The Mets can’t do that. They should be able to, but we’re years past the point where this should be a surprise. This is what the organization’s fate will be indefinitely, and you almost forget when they commit to a Cespedes. When they need some of that depth in the lineup or rotation, though, you sure remember.

Really, what they should do is have their best young pitcher teach two other young pitchers his secrets, and then those two young pitchers can teach four young pitchers their secrets, and so on. Then they’ll have an armada of talented, inexpensive pitchers, and it won’t matter who gets hurt. If someone could get this plan to the Wilpons, that’d be a huge help to the organization.

Still, why would the Mets have needed to spend on depth? They had a gaggle of starting pitchers before the season started. Pitchers who could make the rotations of 20 teams around baseball were going to start in the minors. This isn’t a money thing. This is more about how …

If LaVar is right again, this has implications far beyond the Ball family’s paycheck. It could shift the entire business model for professional athlete brands.

The status quo works in major corporations’ favors when the masses insist that an incoming top draft pick with a valuable personal brand in tow should fall in line and know to never ask for too much. But if Ball secures his co-branding partnership and Lonzo delivers on the court, the message will be sent Basketball Jerseys Custom very clearly to future athletes: They may not have to settle for less.

It’s a stress on an offense to have a non-shooting shooting guard. But under new coach David Fizdale, Memphis put together decent shooting figures despite Allen’s lack of offensive contribution. The Grizzlies ranked No. 13 in three-point rate (a frequency metric) and No. 17 in three-point percentage. They are the Rockets or Warriors, but they aren’t the Thunder or Bulls.

One came in his sophomore season against Idaho State. That reception, a connection with eventual Oregon QB Vernon Adams, showed off both Kupp’s hands and his knack for altering his routes.

“We had made some adjustments on a few different plays,” he said. “They kept going cover 1, and we were just missing on a few inside fade balls. We had a little corner route called from the slot, and we [had three receivers to one side], and they were going middle field-open. And so we adjusted NHL Jerseys Wholesale it to a seam route, and going up the middle, it was basically running the seam off a Mike backer.”

This is the most promising Wizards season in, well … for the sake of Wizards fans, we don’t have to count. What we do know is they haven’t been to a conference finals since 1979. They hadn’t won their division since that season, either, and that finally happened this year. Maybe the conference finals come next.

That’s easy to say for me as an outsider. For a Wizards fan — a fan of any D.C. sports team, if you want to expand the perspective — they’re just waiting for something bad to happen. Can you blame them? Over the past 38 years (sorry) only bad things have happened.

While the playoff order in the West was set before the last game, the East still had drama left. The Heat and Bulls were tied for the last postseason spot at 40-41 with one game left apiece, and the Pacers were clinging onto the No. 7 seed at 41-40.

The Bulls held the tiebreaker over the Heat, which is why they moved into the playoffs despite identical records. But the Pacers did not. Miami defeated Indiana in two of their three regular season matchups and would have advanced into the playoffs if the Pacers lost their season finale.

But Indiana played the Atlanta Hawks, who had secured their standing as the fifth seed in the previous game. The Hawks went on to rest Dwight Howard, Kent Bazemore, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Dennis Schroder. The Pacers, at full strength, won by 18.

Stern put it best: “It’s inexcusable.”

Before we answer that, take a step back and remember that Stanton isn’t just a dinger-besotted curiosity. He’s been one of the best players in the game. When he was 22, he hit .290/.361/.608 with 37 home runs. Only five players had hit more home runs before turning 23, including Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, Eddie Mathews, and Alex Rodriguez. Tony Conigliaro snuck in there, which was an uncomfortable association after Stanton’s beaning in 2014, and Mike Trout and Bryce Harper later joined the club. That was it, though. It was a list that included some of the best baseball talents in the history of the sport.

When someone is that good, that young, they don’t have to get better and better and better until they’re 30, but it’s not unreasonable to hope that they will. And if they don’t, well, that’s a Cheap Youth NBA Jerseys pretty sweet baseline they’ve established. If you change the search to 21-year-olds with 50 career homers, you get …

It’s a fair assumption that Boston will advance. They may be a weak No. 1 seed propped up by an overachieving regular season, but they still should beat any No. 8 seed that heads their way. They won twice in Chicago already this season, and now they head into Game 6 looking to close out the series.

Washington and Atlanta are also playing a first-round series, though, with the Wizards up three games to two on the Hawks. They’re the higher seed and should also be expected to win this series, especially with the one-game lead they retain now. It’s still hypothetical, but let’s imagine the Wizards going up against the Celtics.

You can start Thomas on John Wall, who can just roast him in isolation, or Cheap Softball Jerseys For Girls on Bradley Beal, who can do the same and shoot over him. Any pick-and-roll action that Wall tries to run will be trapped heavily, but Washington is a better shooting team than Chicago. Those are the immediate concerns that come to mind when you wonder how the Celtics will hide Thomas, who is so incredibly valuable on the other end that you need him playing damn near 40 minutes each night.

In the regular season, Boston survived this with the same, harried, switching defense that we’ve seen so far, but will that work in a seven-game playoff series?

It might, but only if Thomas is able to prove he’s not the worst defender in the league.

But given the choice of recovering, or slouching into yet another first round exit, the option was clear. Boston did that by turning back into the team we came to see all regular season. Regardless of what the future holds, it was a welcomed return.

Winning Game 5 (and potentially this series on Friday) doesn’t tell us anything. No. 1 seeds, no matter how “fake” they are, are supposed to win in the first round. But winning is damn sure better than the alternative.

Yesterday we posted our thoughts on Nikita Kucherov’s comments to Pavel Lysenkov of Sovsport.ru. We heard some skepticism from our fanbase about the accuracy of the translation, so we reached out to Russian-to-English translator Igor Nikonov (@nikonov_igor on Twitter). Nikonov provide us with his best translation effort on the entire article text. Because translation is somewhat subjective, here is The Hockey Writer’s translation by Alessandro Seren Rosso for comparison.

I’m hoping Fizdale’s success will open the door for assistants like Stephen Silas and Darvin Ham. Both have been around the game forever. Ham has ex-player cred, but Silas is the son of Paul and both have paid their dues in all manner of assistant coach responsibilities. Both those guys deserve looks and there a dozen other assistants who merit consideration.

The Rockets and Thunder were engaged in a thrilling basketball game until a free throw shooting contest broke out during the fourth quarter.

With 4:11 on the clock, the Rockets began intentionally fouling Andre Roberson, who shot 42.3 percent from the free throw line this season. Roberson missed both shots, so the Rockets did it again. And again. And once more.

In four trips, Roberson shot 2-of-8 on those free throws and is now 2-of-17 in this series. Free throws, in fact, are not always free.

The Thunder took Roberson out with 3:01 left in the fourth quarter, subbing him back in after the two-minute mark, where that strategy can’t be used. Oklahoma City wasn’t able to play its best perimeter defender because he couldn’t put a basketball through the hoop from 15 feet away. As a viewer, our Cheap Wbc Jerseys thrilling back-and-forth sport was instead replaced with professional athletes standing around watching Cheap Volleyball Jerseys For Women set shots. They stood there very athletically, though.

McDowell is going to give whichever team drafts him a lot of position and scheme versatility which means it’s going to be harder for a bad team to ruin him. If that bad team that drafts him and lines Website For Cheap Jerseys him up in the A gap a lot, I will likely pull all my dreads out.

I’m not knocking Michigan State for where they played McDowell, because I don’t know what their motivation was for putting him in the A gap. College teams are going to be focused on winning games more than showcasing guys for the NFL. If both happen to happen simultaneously, cool, but coaches who don’t win games but have a bunch of first- and second-round picks aren’t going to last as a coach very long these days.

It’s frustrating because I would have loved to have seen McDowell out as a five tech or even a three technique more.

It takes a solid matchup get fans excited for football on the day before Christmas, and this one fits the bill. Both teams have star power and should be competitive late in the season.

This game will be a candidate for least-watched evening game of the 2017 season, even with two strong fan bases. There are better ways to spend Christmas night than watching this one.

We also might start seeing a real run on the second-tier quarterbacks. Only three QBs got drafted on Day 2: DeShone Kizer in the second round, and Davis Webb and C.J. Beathard in the third round. Now that we’re in the final stretch, intriguing but flawed prospects like Joshua Dobbs, Nate Peterman, and Brad Kaaya could get drafted in spots where teams are more comfortable taking them.

Day 3 of the draft begins at noon ET on Saturday, with coverage at ESPN and NFL Wholesale Jerseys Cheap Network. Viewers can stream it online at WatchESPN and Watch NFL Network.